1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to mechanical and civil engineering, and in particular, to a method, apparatus, and article of manufacture for easily scaling a drawing based on a real world image.
2. Description of the Related Art
Engineers often design solutions that are integrated with an existing system/design. To perform the integration, the engineer often must re-create an existing system in a computer aided design (CAD) application. Once in electronic form, extensive precise measurements of the real world system must be made (for all of the various parts of the existing real world system) in order to properly scale the CAD design. Such a recreation and scaling is cumbersome and fails to take advantage of features available in modern day portable computing devices (e.g., tablet devices, mobile phones, etc.). To better understand these problems, a description of two different exemplary scenarios may be useful.
In the first scenario, an engineer needs to run a conceptual simulation for the rough sizing of a custom crane built on an existing tug boat. To run the simulation in the prior art, the engineer would need to get drawings of the tug boat, gather reference imagery and measurements, and often still have to visit the boat's actual location to take notes and verify the size and position of key points on the deck of the boat. To start roughing out the crane design, the engineer would then have to re-create the boat layout in a CAD system. An engineer will typically only know a few key functional constraints on the design at this point beyond the mounting details on the boat itself. The engineer might also know the operational length required for the boom and the cranes working loads. Once the engineer has drawn the layout of the boat in the CAD system, the next step is to start sketching in elements of the crane design to rough out sizing. This is primarily done using free body diagrams (statics) to see how long the crane arm can be under the working load without capsizing the boat. There are several other questions the engineer will also answer at this stage of the concept using static simulations. This design stage often requires multiple visits to a customer's location to share details and iterate on the design to meet the customer's needs.
In a second scenario, an engineer wants to analyze an existing mechanism as a potential solution for a new design. It is very typical for an engineer to take advantage of existing well proven mechanisms to solve new problems. In this regard, the engineer may know of a similar mechanism used in a different application that could be a potential solution for the new/current problem. Alternatively, the engineer may have seen a mechanism detailed in a text book or mechanical engineering design book that the engineer desires to replicate and analyze. To replicate an existing design/mechanism in the prior art requires an engineer to effectively re-draw the system from scratch using CAD tools. Thereafter, a calculator, pencil and paper may be used to run a static analysis. If the engineer desires to modify the geometry, all of the calculations must be manually re-run. Such a manual recreation and re-run is not a very efficient process.
In view of the above, what is needed is an easy and efficient mechanism/technique for utilizing an existing design/solution that does not require that an engineer perform numerous manual measurements and calculations.